Pokemon GO's Latest Legendary Has a Big Problem

By Olivia Falk 11 November 2017

Pokémon GO is no stranger to bugs and glitches, but it seems that the problems with Suicune – its latest addition – run deeper than that. Since Suicine’s release, players have discovered that it is the weakest legendary in the game by a significant margin, and is even outpaced by other, more common Pokémon.

For those out of the loop, Pokémon GO divides a Pokémon’s stats up into Attack, Defense, and HP, averaging all those values into a CP value that gives a general sense of how two Pokémon compare to one another. It’s a simplified system compared to the core games, making it easier for casual players to stack up their teams without going through a bunch of stat calculations.

However, this seems to have worked against Suicune; its CP reportedly falls around 100 points short of Articuno – the second weakest legendary. A large part of this seems to be Suicune’s focus on defense; it was never an overly potent attacker in the original games and is outpaced by its fellow legendary dogs. Unfortunately, Pokémon GO’s CP calculation system doesn’t seem to place as much emphasis on defensive stats when reflecting its overall value, leading to Suicune’s underwhelming results.

That doesn’t mean that Suicune is completely useless, as defensive stats can still be of value to players who place a lot of Pokémon in gyms. However, Suicune falls short here as well, since other Pokémon like Blissey are far sturdier.

Besides, with many players simply focusing on attacking gyms or participating in raid battles, it’s clear that offensive statistics are generally more valuable. Suicune apparently can’t even outpace other Pokémon of its type, falling behind favorites like Vaporeon and Gyarados, and lacking any Water-type “fast moves” (the ones that occur simply by tapping on the screen in battle).

With all the fuss that erupts in the Pokémon GO fanbase when a new legendary is revealed, it’s a shame that Suicune is shaping up to be a bit of a disappointment. Personally, I’ve always been a Raikou fan myself, but I’m sure many players will wish that the ice dog put up more of a fight in combat. At least those that want Suicune simply for the Pokédex entry will have plenty of chances to nab it; it’s sticking around in North and South America until the end of November.